Article and Image Courtesy : Down to Earth
Author : Ankur Paliwal
The global information technology services company, Infosys, headquartered at Bengaluru, plans to become carbon neutral and shift completely to renewable energy by 2017
Rohan Parikh, head of the Green Initiatives and Infrastructure division at Infosys
Excerpts from the interview:
When did Infosys decide to tread the path of clean energy and efficient use of natural resources?
Infosys has always been responsible towards environment. But four years ago, in 2007, we decided to take leadership in the area of sustainable development and efficient use of natural resources. It is also a way of putting pressure on our peers to do the right thing. Some of our important goals include 50 per cent reduction in energy consumption, and becoming carbon neutral by 2017.
What is the percentage of renewable energy in the total energy consumed by Infosys?
Out of the total 265 million units consumed last year across all our campuses, 10 per cent came from renewable energy, mostly solar. Currently, it is around 20 per cent. Infosys is also proud to have the largest number of solar water heaters used in a commercial organisation in the country. They can heat around 600,000 litres of water each day. We aim to switch over to renewable energy completely by 2017. For this, we are signing contracts with project developers to get the best deals. We are also finding out which kind of renewable energy source is better in which location.
But renewable energy is much more costly than conventional energy. Switching over completely to renewable energy would also require large stretches of land for setting up solar panels and wind farms. How do you plan to do that? Does it make business sense?
At Infosys, most of the renewable energy that we source is from offsite sources like wind, hydro or biomass. We will continue to follow this path, especially in states like Karnataka, which have favourable policies leading to wind and hydro power at grid parity or lower than grid cost. At present, onsite solar energy is not viable as it consumes a large amount of prime land and it is not competitive with grid cost. However, based on the current solar PV trends, we believe that offsite solar plants will reach grid parity in the next five years. Also, when we acquire land for new campuses we make sure we have adequate open spaces to venture into renewable energy. Currently, our onsite solar PV adoption is limited to the available roof space in our campuses. Our wind turbines are erected on tall buildings with adequate wind exposure and topographical ridges. In the long run, it will make business sense for corporations to switch to renewable energy sources as it will help to not only cut down costs but also reduce carbon emissions.
What is your choice of technology for solar panels—crystalline silicon or thin films?
As mentioned earlier, the onsite solar PV adoption is limited to available roof-top space in our campuses. We will continue to pursue the technologies which promise the highest levels of efficiency. We have completed two projects in our Jaipur and Thiruvanthapuram centres where we have adopted mono-crystalline technology for solar PVs. However, the future choice will depend on the most efficient technology available at the time we are ready for the next project installation.
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